Ghana must urgently shift from exporting raw commodities to value-added manufactured goods, strengthen its quality standards, build agro-industrial zones and leverage its 24-hour economy policy or risk squandering the most significant trade opening in the country’s modern economic history.
That was the central message at the GHACIFA Dialogues: Reviewing Ghana-Africa Zero Tariff, a national symposium held in Accra under the theme: “Opportunities Arising from the China-Africa Zero Tariffs.”
Organised by the Ghana-China Friendship Association, the forum brought together economists, diplomats and trade experts to assess what the sweeping Chinese trade policy means for Ghana and the continent.
In a keynote address, Economist Dr Samuel Nii-Noi Ashong laid out a bold blueprint that Ghana must execute without delay, to transform a chronic trade deficit with China into a platform for industrial renaissance.
“The good news is that the future looks bright for Ghana, provided we get our house in order,” Dr. Ashong told delegates.
The Opportunity and the Warning
The backdrop to the dialogue is a seismic shift in Chinese trade policy. Earlier this year, President Xi Jinping announced that China would extend non-reciprocal, 100 percent zero-tariff treatment to all 53 of its African diplomatic partners, effective May 1, 2026, expanding a preferential scheme previously limited to the continent’s least developed countries.
The initiative covers more than 8,000 tariff lines and is explicitly designed to accelerate Africa’s industrialisation rather than merely facilitate trade in raw materials.
Yet Dr. Ashong sounded a sharp warning against complacency. An earlier zero-tariff scheme extended to 33 African nations in December 2024 had already failed to deliver.
Africa’s trade deficit with China widened dramatically from an average of US$64.7 billion between 2022 and 2024 to US$102 billion in 2025, a deterioration of 64.6 percent in a single year.
“Tariffs are not necessarily the primary barriers to Africa’s export trade,” Dr. Ashong said, adding “The real obstacles are non-tariff barriers, inadequate value-added manufacturing, insufficient processing capacity and non-compliance with China’s sanitary and phytosanitary standards.”
Ghana’s own record underscores the urgency. The country has run a persistently negative trade balance with China since 2012, with the annual deficit worsening from an average of US$1.23 billion between 2012 and 2017 to US$2.21 billion between 2020 and 2025.
Ghana’s Blueprint
Dr Samuel Nii-Noi Ashong’s prescription centred on processing raw materials into finished goods before export — prioritising cocoa products, refined shea butter and other processed agricultural goods best positioned to benefit from zero-tariff access.
He called on the Ghana Standards Authority to be urgently resourced to help SMEs meet Chinese quality requirements, and recommended the development of dedicated agro-processing zones with cold storage and improved logistics.
He urged government to actively attract Chinese investment into manufacturing and technology, establish industrial zones in electronics and renewable energy and create dedicated trade offices inside China to market Ghanaian goods directly to consumers.
He also called for robust anti-dumping safeguards to shield vulnerable local industries particularly textiles and clothing from cheap imports.
Most ambitiously, Dr. Ashong argued that Ghana’s 24-hour economy policy, if properly implemented with reliable power supply, could multiply the gains from zero-tariff access by enabling continuous factory production, round-the-clock port operations and uninterrupted quality control, making Ghanaian goods cheaper, faster to ship and fully compliant with Chinese import regulations.
A Call Rooted in History
Mr Li Yang, Chargé d’Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Accra, described the zero-tariff initiative as “not merely a trade agreement, but a pillar of friendship,” pledging Chinese cooperation across four strategic areas: industrial and supply chain development, infrastructure, human resources and trade and investment growth.
Benjamin Anyagre, General Secretary of GHACIFA, anchored his remarks in the 65-year history of Ghana-China ties, recalling that Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Premier Zhou Enlai formalised their people-to-people bond on August 18, 1961.
Speaking as the Convener of the dialogue, he called for the revival of Nkrumah’s import substitution industrialisation legacy, its integration with the One District, One Factory initiative and the full activation of the 24-hour economy identifying cocoa processing, cashew and broader agro-processing and minerals downstream processing as the three industries around which Ghana should organise its export ambitions.
